Situated on one of the longest streets in Mexico City, Insurgentes Avenue, the old Liverpool department store was just a box before renovation: bare plastered walls faced the busy street, while all the shops were hidden inside. When a new metro station opened on the corner in 2012, greatly increasing the number of pedestrians on the street, it became clear that the modest beige façade needed to be updated: it not only cannot entice people to go inside, but also does not decorate the city in any way.
"Is it possible to correct mistakes in urban planning with architecture?" - asks Michel Rohkind and wraps a reinforced concrete box with a honeycomb-like translucent shell, blurring the boundaries between the interior of the department store and the urban environment.
The new wall, 2.8 meters deep, consists of three layers of hexagonal meshes made of fiberglass, aluminum, steel and glass, and contains 740 m2 of usable area. All façade layers are supported by a hollow steel structure attached to the existing supporting structures, which creates a system of interconnected volumetric cells around the perimeter of the building. Each such honeycomb cell turns out to be approximately the size of a room; you can move between them along stairs and ramps, also located in the thickness of the wall.
At night, the facade becomes lacy: each "honeycomb" is illuminated by neon tape modules installed in the plasterboard walls, clearly revealing the three-dimensional volume of the extension. The interior becomes an exhibit displayed in hexagonal display cases.
The collaboration between Liverpool owners and Michel Rohkind is built on the same belief: design must bring meaning. Previously, this principle was implemented by an architect when
the construction of another department store of the same chain: for example, additional premises for events were located in the undulating ribbons of the facade, which increased the company's revenues by 30%. It was this success that convinced the customer to start the reconstruction of his other building according to the same scheme - with an increase in the area at the expense of the facade.
The functional use of the hexagonal cells of the new facade on Insurgentes Avenue is indicated in the drawings in the most generalized way: "exhibition space", "terrace", "show room", but in fact they can accommodate a broadcasting point of a local radio station or coworking space, culinary shows and yoga classes, all in a shop window. Michel Rohkind managed to convince the owners of Liverpool not to display mannequins in the windows, so the possibilities of these spaces are diverse and limited only by the imagination, but the problem is who will imagine all this. Therefore, Rojkind Arquitectos are actively involved in the PR of new spaces, thereby showing that the architect's work ends not at the time of the building, but the project.
